>> and saying that blacks were in revolt. and the next morning between 600 and 1,000 men, white men, pour into phillips county to begin shooting down blacks. >> and on american history tv on c-span3, sunday at 5:00 pm, former student bruce lindsey on integration and north little rock high school. >> as if they know what's going to happen. we don't know what's going to happen. we don't realize what's going to happen. because the crowd is with us. the momentum is with us. and they are pushing us up the steps. >> she's stories and other content on c-span2 and 3. >> and now booktv presents the 2012 national book critic circle awards from the new school in new york city. the awards are presented annually by the nation's critics in six categories, nonfiction, autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, and poetry. this year's award ceremony also includes the presentation of the ivan sandroff award for lifetime achievement to robert silvers editor of the new york books. this is just over an hour. >> so good evening, i'm director of the new writing school program. it's my pleasure to welcome you on the occasion of the award ceremony of the national book critic circle awards. we want to welcome everybody back who attended last night's powerful evening of readings by the nominated writers. >> those of you who are here will readily admit that you experiences something stylish, wonders are and rare. we'll want to welcome other critics and reviewers who come from new york and magazines from all across the country. the graduate writing program cosponsored with nbcc. they are the only literary honors that are bestowed by practicing critics and reviewers. last night, eric banks the president of the nbcc reminded that the very first recipients of the national book critic circle awards including eldoctore, ew lewis and john ashbury so to honor that first nbcc awards ceremony and another one tonight i thought i'd read a short bit in poetry, a brief passage from the title poem of john ash bury portrait in a convict's mirror. on the surface of the there seems no special reason that that light should be focused by love or why the city falling with its beautiful suburbs in space always less clear less defined should read as the support of its progress. the easel upon which the drama unfolded to its own satisfaction and to the end of our dreaming as we had never dreamed it would end. in worn daylight with the painted promise showing through as a gauge, a bond. this nondescript never to be defined daytime is the secret of where it takes place. and we can no longer return to the various conflicting statements gathered, lapses of memory of the principal witnesses. all we know is that we were a little earlier that today has that lapdary todayness casting twig shadows. no previous day would have been like this. i used to think they were all alike. that the present always looked the same to everybody. but this confusion drains away as one is always cresting into one's presence. so that was the first nbcc and now to keep the present cresting as ashbury said please join me in welcoming the president of national book circle eric banks. [applause] >> he deserves that applause but let me say that eric banks is former editor of art forum and he launched as book forum as he served as editor-in-chief until 2008. he has appeared in several magazines, periodicals, newspapers including the "new york times," the "new york times" book review, the financial times and the chronicle of higher education and now eric banks. [applause] >> i'm president of the nbcc and it is my pleasure to join you in honoring the 30 authors whom we celebrate tonight for their outstanding work in six categories. fiction, nonfiction, biography, poetry, autobiography and criticism. we're fortunate to have representatives on the stage this evening most exemplary works published in the past year. i'd like to extend our gratitude to all the authors who have come to join us tonight. and to say a special thank you to the representatives of our two finalists who are no longer with us manning maribold and allen willis. we're all excited to have you with us here. the national book critic awards were founded in 1974 at a conversation that took place in a hotel by a group of critics who wanted to establish a set of awards given by critics themselves. unlike other national literary awards there would be no books nominated by publishing houses, they would not be funded by publishers either. instead it would be the critics themselves who would nominate and judge the titles they thought most worthy. as robert poli, to noted a few minutes ago they did a fantastic job honored with the processes el's rag time john henry a convict's mirror, rw willis's a biography. in the 37 years since those first awards the nbcc has grown to include some 600 member critics and editors of book reviews from across the country and the number of judging categories has expanded from 4 to 6. we also have added two honors to show our appreciation of individual critics and distinguished institutions. each was noted as influence and honoring by the nbcc for their work and the lifetime achievement of worked is known for the body of work for our literary and critical culture. the various activities, panels and events that the nbcc sponsors has grown far beyond what the original time might have had in might but we want to thank the great work of our forebears of the brilliant titles published each your. as expressed but in our simple but succinct statement it's to honor outstanding writing and foster a national conversation about reading, criticism and literature. tonight is a substantiation of that year by year mission. before the phrase diy entered our lexicon, the nbcc was already a bootstrap organization that drew upon the volunteer services of so many in the literary community not least today the critics who make up our 25-member board and have spent the last 12 minutes giving their time in reading and discussing the hundreds of titles each year and finally organizing our two days of ceremonies. can i ask all the nbcc directors please to stand now and be recognized for your effort. [applause] >> we also wouldn't be able to put such public free of charge events together without the help of so many other people. i'd like to thank a particular tonight robert polito and the new school university for their generosity and their tremendous hospitality. i'd also like to extend a thank you to pate and our volunteer assistants and say a special word of thanks to our tireless web manager/tech genius/miracle driver david barno who i pointed out last night and i'll point out last night mastered every single task asked of him all the way down to driving and serving lemons and lyme's and picking up an extra vodka for tonight's benefit reception. i also want to extend a very special thank you to two public list -- publicist geniuses who stepped up. [applause] >> these two helped us to spread the word about our 30 great books that we honor tonight in ways that we only used to dream about. so i thank you lauren and sarah. tonight's of the award was a yearlong set of discussions. we reached our decision only about an hour ago and a block away in the same space where we convened throughout the afternoon our benefit reception will take place immediately after the awards. it's at the lang center on the second floor. we invite you to toast all the finalists for this year's awards right after the completion of tonight's events. tickets for the reception can be purchased at the door for 50 which is. i hate to mention the price. we always do everything we can to make nbcc events open and to the public. this is one event of the year where we ask you to chip in but at $50 in this town it's a steal. and we hope you will join us to help support the national book critic circle. additionally, i would like to point out that all of our books are available for purchase outside the door. tonight's finalist run the gambit from poets to biographers novelists to critics. they represent public houses as random august, the university of chicago press and it's scrappy and shoestring, lookout books. they include a first book about the literary ghosts that is harlem. a first novel about a psychiatric resident in the streets of new york and brussels and a collection of short stories by a master of the forum who's received related appreciation. their topics include karl marx from obbers to world war i to guns 'n' roses and mtv's the real world. and without further ado, i'm pillows to introduce the chair of our committee, carolyn kellogg to present the excellence for viewing. thank you for joining us. [applause] >> there's a notable citation for reviewing is a mouthful. it's a awarded each year to an nbcc member who has proved their mettle for the call of duty. i would like to congratulate our four finalists and apologize if i mispronounce any members. william, ruth, garth and catherine. they rose to the top of a very crowded field. we received more entries this year than ever before. but one -- our winner stood out from the west with a sense of emotional urgency and intellectual clarity, please congratulate catherine schultz for winning the citation for excellence in reviewing. [applause] is >> carolyn, thank you, that's lovely and sutink at the same time which at the same time is the same time. i would like to thank the nbcc as well. i heard the news about the -- about 72 hours after i accepted my first real job as a book critic which as you can imagine intensified my feeling that i just don't so much deserve this award as need to go out and earn it but in either event i'm incredibly grateful and really honored to be here tonight. my great aunt, ruth kaufman died this past year at 83 years of age after many, many years as a librarian and a lifetime as a truly formidable reader long before i got involved in the book business, she was pretty much review of the by line of every reviewer. it happens who knew? and if you grew up related to ruth, you grew up with the frequent exposure to her favorite -- i guess you could say etiquette tips. she would tell us if you find yourself at a dinner party or any kind of social engagement and you don't know anyone what to say and you feel kind of awkward and nervous you should just turn to the person nearest to you and say, so have you read any good books recently. i'm not very good with faces but it does seem to me that some of the people nearest to me include jeff dyer and many, many others which points to a small flaw in my great aunt's advice. i'm very nervous at the moment but the whole reason that i'm nervous that, of course, everyone in this room has read a good book recently. [laughter] >> many of you, in fact, have written extremely good books and some of you, my fellow finalists, for this honor have not only read good books but have gone to write with incredible insight and grace very lovely reviews of those books that are literary works in their own right. i honestly have no idea why i'm standing up tonight instead of you. but i do know that your work is where i turn when i myself am stuck and said inspiration and, again, i'm incredibly honored to be in your company. and this is the moment when i'm supposed to say something cogent about literature and criticism to an audience that's terrifyingly literary but not terrifyingly critical. i learned late last night if we're going to be totally honest about it i could dodge that mandate and grossly exceeding my word count by just keeping this extremely sort. my thoughts on whether serious literature has a future and whether criticism remains relevant are yes and yes. and the only thing i really actually want to say about reviewing some of it goes back to my great aunt's advice to me. in two different ways. talking about books is fun. the stuff of parties and dinner conversation. that is blindingly obvious to me when i'm actually engaged in that kind of informal face-to-face reviewing, when i'm talking about books with other people who love to do so. and i try very hard to remember it as well when i'm engaged in more formal reviewing. not because i think that books and reviews are a form of entertainment in the shallowest sense, to the contrary, that deep substantive engagement with books is one of life's most durable and enduring and deep pleasures and i do think that a huge part of our responsibility as critics is to -- is to commute in both sense of the work to pleasures to our reader. and the second is books and conversation about books is -- serves as kind of a binding agent among strangers and in that sense -- and bear with me for a moment and i know it will sound incredibly weird but i sometimes think the real pleasure i get from books is just the kind of subset of my awe of my consciousness, that it exists. a hunk of meat can somehow have awareness and have ideas and come up with, you know, beautiful sentences and the odyssey and orlando and then the sort of secondary mystery it can go ahead and convey all that to another hunk of meat and this is such a fundamental part of our everyday life that it starts to seem banatural and one of the things that i love about books is that they remind you no, actually that is astonishing. to write a beautiful sentence or to say something about your own experience of life that is so astute and so precise that it illuminates and enlarge my experience that is first of all amazing and second of all as everybody in this room knows, it is so hard to do. and over and over i am actually so moved when people manage to pull it off. i spend my time thinking about books because it reminds me simultaneously of that vast strangeness that is the experience of being human and also of the amazing intimacy and the possibility of connecting with one another and that to my mind is a perfectly sufficient argument to do what we do. and speaking of connection before i get off the stage i just just very quickly thank to a couple people of me being here tonight. the "new york times" review entrusted me with several books this time of the year and gave me the space to say exactly what i wanted to about them. everybody i worked there was a pleasure but i should specifically thank two people actually who are no longer there. one is jenny schussler and one is adam moss. and putting incredible faith and wants me to live up to it which i think is one of the gifts you can give a writer. amanda katz is the best editor i know. the most astute, the most demanding and supportive. she talked me through every review last year and a good bit beside if there was an nbcc award for best editor of catherine schultz, she would definitely win it and finally i need to thank all the writers in this room and beyond who made my work possible, whether i am actually reviewing your books or just reading them to remind me of the astonish range of things that literature can do. it is absolutely one of the richest parts of my life. i have read some good books recently and that is because of you. thank you so much. [applause] >> ivan was long with john leonard and known blakion was one of the founder of the national book critic circle in 1974. in his memory, the nbcc created the award to honor significant sustained contributions to american literary culture. past recipients have included such distinguished individuals as alford kazen, elizabeth hardwick, albert murray, leslie and paul lean. they've also included institutions including the library of america, dotki archive press and penn american center. as previously announced, this year's recipient of the award is an individual, robert b. silvers, who em bodies an institution the new york review of books. both have been indispensable for the works in the united states for as long as the nbcc has been in existence. the new york review was founded in 1963 as a temporary alternative to new york newspapers that had gone on strike. several of those newspapers, the herald tribune, the journal american and the world telegram and sun are distant memories. but the new york review endid you see and thrives. presenting the award to bob sellers is a frequent contributor to the new york review of books. he is daniel mendelson and he has stood up here on two other joyous occasions. in 2000 he was the recipient of the nbcc's nona blakian citation in excellence in reviewing. and in 2007 his memoir, the lost a search of 6 of 6 million received the nbcc award for autobiography. mendelson's other books include the 1999 memoir, the elusive embrace, desire and the riddle of identity. the 2002 scholarly study gender and the city in the political plays and in 2009, his two-volume translation of the poetry of cp kavassi. academically trained as a classist he currently occupies the charles right handlet flint chair in humanities at bart college. mendelson has published more than 60 pieces in the new york review of books many of them collected in this 2008 book how beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken. his first appearance in the new york review occurred on april 27th, 2000, with a discussion of ted hughes translation of a book. his subjects have range judicial district from arastpnes and horace to tennessee williams, and mel brooks. because of his extensive association with robert silvers and his sorry with the nbcc, daniel mendelson is the ideal figure to introduce this year's recipient of the ivan sandroff award. i welcome him now to the stage. applause -- [applause] >> thank you. i have to say that introducing robert silvers to an audience of book critics and publishing eminences is the most spectacul spectacularcally redundant thing i can do. i know one thing which bob will not do is speak gushingly about him and to talk what he means to his writers. i'm going to start with a little story, about a dozen years ago i was having dinner on a small boat in the middle lecturing to a bunch of well healed ivy graduates when the captain came into the dining room and approached me looking pretty grim, mr. mendelson, he said, would you please follow me to the bridge. there's a transatlantic radio telephone call for you. i followed him up the little metal steps already wondering how i could get a helicopter to whisk me off the ship back to athens for the flight back in new york in time for my parents' funerals since it was clear to me only a catsa of a large magnitude could occasion a transatlantic radio telephone call. and literally shaking i lifted the little x-ray plastic receiver that the captain had handed to me to my ear, hello, i gulp whether the good black suit was back from the dry cleaners on 72 understand street and broadway. [laughter] >> oh, danny came the voice of bob silvers. i museum to the robotizing crackle on the line. it's so good that i caught you. [laughter] >> look, i don't know if you've got the piece in front of you. [laughter] >> but it's a beginning of it -- i do think it's best to have two sentences with a full stop rather than a semicolon. [laughter] >> i slumped into the captain's chair and surround my voice, yes, bob, i squeaked finally. sure, if you think it makes a difference, absolutely. it certainly does. all right. we'll fax you a final galley and then the familiar valeaddiction he always thanks his writers but as everybody knows in publishing it's his writers who should be thinking him. when you write for bob silvers you're in the best and safest hands in the literary world today. when you write for bob silvers you know every word matters to him as much as it does to you and as this little anecdote shows, and it's true which i shows puts it in fiction for a metaphor. kidding. [laughter] >> there's no small detail he'll worry about more than you will. as for the big things i can say that writing for robert silvers is the most intellectually stimulating and creatively exhilarating experience that i have e